All Signs Point to Relationship

The word became flesh and dwelt among us, within us, to point us to the importance of relationship. God yearns to know us in close relationship and the flesh, the material, points us inward, the spiritual, to help us realize how important close relationship within humankind is to God. 

Even when humanity could not handle the openness of Christ’s invitation to everyone and welcome all, no matter station or stature, into this divine relationship, God said; you can’t take Me away from you. We are one. I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, from the Gospel of John. 

Relationship was so vitally important to God that crucifixion, what we did to that body of Jesus, was not God’s last word. God is still on the move, seeking us out, sending us an infinite number of invitations so that we never forget God’s yearning to be close to us. 

We see in the resurrection the eternal relationship of God. It was the point all along. God in relationship with us through Jesus, so that all of humanity can see and experience God’s presence. 

Most of us can feel what it is like when relationships are lost, just like Mary as she stood at the foot of the cross while her friend breathed His last. 

Even in our sadness we feel how important deep loving connection is to who we are as human beings. When we lose that connection, it hurts. Even the pain of loss can help us realize how important healthy relationships are to our soul.

All signs, Divine and human alike, point to the importance of healthy relationship with others and ourselves. It may feel overwhelming to think of how to create and sustain healthy relationships. It may not be that complicated after all. If we can only follow the signs in our heart. If only we gaze upon all of creation and see the importance of relationship: the stars with the evening sky, the moon with the sun, the sunrise with the sunset, the rivers and streams with the oceans and so on.

All signs point to relational connection.

What if relationship was easy? What if we could all live into the beauty of seeing another’s innate self-worth? What if we could all live and experience our own innate self-worth? 

What if it is that easy? Just see and value our own humanity so that we can see and value it in others. We may call this the divine spark. That divine spark is what we miss when our loved one is lost. Truly we miss the relational connection. 

Maybe this will help us walk in the world with a stronger sense of empathy and in the empathy, we can see that divine spark in others even as we claim our own self-worth. 

We all know how important relationship is to our overall health and well-being. We can feel it when it is lost and we can feel it when it is good. This may be God’s dream for us all when we hear Jesus saying, that they all be one.

We honor our relationship with God by honoring God’s relationship with all of creation. When this is in harmony, the inner relationship between the material and the spiritual, it is Good News.

Our comfort may come from the deep spiritual knowing, that place we may forget sometimes and loose touch with, that God is the Divine and Eternal relationship. If we really listen and watch, all signs point us to this beautiful, endless relationship.

Can we imagine that?

Can our hearts truly fathom that truth in our soul?

What we most yearn for, a real and every day healthy relationship with ourselves and our God, is the same Divine Yearning back to us from God.

All signs point towards this Holy relationship.

A new story

‘Until the lioness tells their side of the story the tale will always glorify the hunter’, is an old African proverb and it is a wonderful reminder for me to listen to the truth in someone else’s story. Another way of thinking of this, my life experience cannot dictate how another person responds to the circumstances of their life. 

Even though I can relate to addiction, having faced my own binge drinking habit, I don’ have the capacity of life experience to know what it is like to be addicted to more harmful drugs such as heroin or cocaine. I cannot know what it is like to face the double trauma of mental illness and addiction even if, through life experience, I may understand addictive behavior. 

I can bring only my life experience to bear on my own reactions and decision making. My experience is no one else’s even if it “intersects” along a common line based on location and environmental influences. 

This behavior of making ones experience the norm becomes destructive to the collective when groups then gather and create a ‘norm’ by which all of life is calculated. If the hunter creates not only the story, but creates a normative story, based on their life experience, by which all of life revolves, then anything, anyone, or any group that operates outside of that ‘norm’ is deemed to be the wrong way and even less than. 

Jesus is telling a new story.

What happens when the story or narrative we have been told begins to be challenged by the truth in someone else’s story? When this happens do we lose our ability to hear? Do we move from listening to ignoring? Even worse do we work at shutting down the alternative narrative because it goes against our perceived ‘normal’? 

Let those with ears hear the new story.

This concept of listening for the truth in someone else’s story, listening for the lioness to speak, may help us to live a more compassionate life based on empathy for others. This is the first step towards creating and sustaining the Beloved Community that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of.

When we release our grip on the concept that our life experience is the barometer by which all things are calculated, then the barriers we build to protect our ‘way’ of life crumble. By allowing these destructive barriers to crumble, in a real sense, we are opening our hearts to the realities of those who live a different life experience. 

Jesus was telling a new narrative of God by which the Divine was not located in the empire or the golden castles or golden temples of his day. God was located within all of creation but especially, by way of the new heaven and new earth, within those marginalized or the put asides and put outs of the day. Jesus was telling a new story and giving voice to the Love of God instead of the domination of God based on the domination of the Jewish and Roman authorities. 

Jesus is telling a new story. 

With our listening, spiritual ear we can hear this new narrative of God among us, for us, and with/within us. Jesus is teaching us that the realm of God is in every heart and soul. The divine spark that created everything that is, is also part of who we are. No system of domination can contain that spark.

This new way of seeing God’s presence within all of creation unbeholden to anyone or any system, is a new story told from the point of view of the dominated and the oppressed. In other word’s Jesus is telling the story of the lioness and we must decide who we are going to listen to. 

This new way of seeing and telling the story of God challenges our ears so much so that we may not want to hear the story that Jesus tells. Listening to this new story from Jesus requires that we put aside our own proclivity towards owning the narrative of life based on our own particular experience. 

If the first step towards taking an active part in the building of the beloved community is empathy, then we must listen to the new story that Jesus tells. 

Weary

My heart is weary and heavy

Bombs, guns, hate

Children 

Dying in the streets

Parents taken 

Lives lost

Gloom 

In the middle of 

Coming spring

Help me O God

I prayed

Help us O God I asked

Take this all away and bring peace

Take this pain away from us 

Make all this stop 

Heal us

I pray

Where are you O God 

I asked

How long 

O Lord 

How Long

Must we wait

Then my eyes saw

My ears heard

My heart gazed

My soul listened 

Upon the earth

Birds chirped, geese honked

Wind moved trees swayed 

Sun smiled memory exploded

Emmanuel

God is with us 

From then of all yesterdays 

From now until all tomorrows

God with us 

In all

Within all

Help me O God

Live within your peace 

As your peace lives within

Help us O God 

Be Your peace Your love

Your grace Your strength

Your compassion 

In our time

Guide our steps

So that all hearts

Point to your peace

Peace

Richard Rohr says, “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.”

I don’t know about you, but my newsfeed is stock full of bad news. Bad people doing bad and horrible things to one another. On top of all the bad news we are witness to one of the most divided times in our country. Everywhere I turn I hear of this bad news. On top of that I hear our leaders simply arguing over who is to blame. As if we can simply find someone to blame then find someone to respond the way we want, and all these problems of the world will be fixed. We hear arguing instead of deep thinking of the very real problems we face in our lives here within our own communities as well as the violence of war.

Many of us are seeking an answer to the question what can we do? We can’t solve the world’s problems. We can’t solve the problems of the lingering pandemic. We can’t solve the problems of an economic storm that is causing prices to rise across the board for everyone. We can’t go talk to those world leaders who turn towards evil, power and violence and tell them to STOP! We could close our eyes or grow a hardened heart and cover our worry and our pain with anger. There are any number of ways to respond when our communities and world bring news of pain and violence.

We can practice better

I like this quote from Richard Rohr because it speaks to me as a person with an empathetic heart who feels the pain in the images of war and violence. As a person who has witnessed the rise of hate and anger over these last few years. As a person who wishes we could stop yelling and be more compassionate instead of using the worries of the world as political tools in order to kick the other down just a little bit more. As a person who wishes we could listen to the love of God more instead of our own pain that finds a home in the ridicule of “them, those, and the others”.

I can practice the better

I can criticize less with my words and realize that practicing better is not something that I can do to solve the problems of the world. Practicing better means that better finds a home in my heart. Better in my heart means that the empathy I feel for the people who are facing war, violence, hunger, homelessness, addiction and so on and on and on doesn’t get taken over by judgement and self-righteousness. This idea of better means that peace finds a home in my heart so that in every aspect of my daily life people experience peace through me. That seems better than people finding more anger and judgement.

I can practice better

I cannot preach peace while the pain of empathy turns my soul to revenge. I cannot preach peace while being infected with the need to blame. The pains of the world are simply that. Pains of the world and the struggles of humanity as part of our human existence. To turn our attention to blame and revenge means that the pain only expands to infect more and more souls.

We can practice better

We all can be part of the healing process. We can all become advocates and allies for those who are facing oppression. We can respond to the human atrocities happening in the Ukraine by remembering that people in our own hometown communities are facing many of the same atrocities. Those atrocities that we are witnessing in the Ukraine happen at home each day in every community.  To do better is to see the hurt in our own community and work to heal all that we have broken in the name of power and greed.

The practice of better, to do better and to criticize the bad is to practice peace in our hearts.

I believe that God is on the side of peace making even while we make war.

If I’m going to stand in a position of crying for peace that peace must start with me.

This work of being love in the world keeps me in perfect harmony and singing to the tune of God’s peace.

To criticize the bad is to do better and make peace part of my soul instead of just a word and a symbol.

Peace Begins

Me n You

Here n Now

Truth!

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

As it is above so it is below

As it is on the outside so it shall be on the inside

When we think of rules as something that we must follow, Commandments, or we will get into trouble it can create a world view of vengeance and retribution, as it was said years ago in one of my classes, a sky bully theology. In other words, do as I say, or you’ll get what’s coming to you, from God itself. Imagine. Waiting for God to seek revenge for our wrongdoing. How scary is that?

Think, “wait til’ your father gets home.”

Many a little child waited expectantly for the wrath of an angry parent. Many hearts were filled with terror and anxiety as we waited for the “whipping” that would commence. I don’t believe that parents meant to terrorize their young children and I’m not debating to spank or not to spank.

This narrative way of understanding a theology of commandment or rule as a do it or feel the wrath of God understanding takes away a deeper truth about the world in which we live together.

With this theology and worldview, we can then become the avengers, the punishers, the defenders of all that is righteous. That is a slippery slope, a thin line to easy to cross, towards taking on the role of the bully. With a vengeful theology, idea of who God is, or a vengeful worldview it creates quite a bit of anxiety within us and our collective psyche. This is when fists fly, power corrupts, and wars commence.  

If our theology of a vengeful God rules our hearts, we take on the role of enforcer.

I like to think of this as the Golden Truth much more so than the Golden Rule of do it or else.

As a Golden Truth it may read that this is a way of good life for us and our community. It may read as more of a Jesus Way of invitation towards righteousness, right relationship between us, our neighbors and God.

As it is above so it is below. As it is on the outside so it shall be on the inside.

We reflect into the world what we feel on the inside. If our past pain is not healed, we continue to cause pain in the world through self-righteousness, anger, revenge, self-centeredness, and ego first instead of God’s Love first and foremost, as Jesus did.

When we react from a place of anger and vengeance, we are poisoning the soul, the divine, inside us as well as the world outside.

Imagine that? Let’s just sit with that for a minute.

Take a breath and repeat that couple of times.

When we react from a place of anger and vengeance, we are poisoning the soul, the divine, inside us as well as the world outside.

Whew!!

What would happen if we made a commitment to ourselves, our families, and our communities to deal with our own issues of past pain.

I know that many times my own anger felt like a rock that covered and protected something deep. This rock of anger became a protective shield so that I didn’t have to remember the pain of past trauma and embarrassment. It was only when this outer shell began to brake open, crack by crack over time, I realized that the anger was a safety piece surrounding vulnerability. This protective shield, for me, falls away when I step into spiritual empathy, seeing the divine in others as I feel it is in me. I began to see the hurt I was causing to others in my life that did not deserve to feel my pain.

Maybe you’re like me and it feels like a daily struggle much more than a one and done prayer. Maybe you’re like me and it’s a journey instead of short trip to a known point.

These days I cannot say that the words that come out of my mouth are not colorful at times. These days I cannot say that I don’t get angry or that I am simply walking in this world on a cloud of peace.

I can say that the lessons of life, good loving people showing me a different way, and a ministry founded in Christ Jesus has helped me see how important it is that we work to heal ourselves so that we can reflect peace back into the world instead of more vengeance, anger, and violence.

As God has done for us so we do for others.

This is a Truth that can bring health to our world one transformed heart at a time.  

American Camel

In Matthew 19:24 we hear a discussion between Jesus and his disciples. Or so we think. 😉 We must back up to get a larger view of the famous saying, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.”

We may interpret this as an answer to the question, what must we do now to earn heaven later. Backing up a bit to earlier verses, “if you wish to enter into life, keep the Commandments.”

Jesus puts Life now together with the Kingdom, Realm, Heaven, or place of God later to come. In other words, it is much more about putting the now of life together with the then of life to come. This helps us realize it’s more about an and also way of viewing this one eternal life with/within God.

What if Jesus Christ was talking about righteousness, or right relationship now is life itself. To live a life of healthy, fully human living for us, our families, our communities, and our neighbors now instead of earning a spot in the heaven to come.

As it is with the entirety of the Gospel story, the saying(s) belongs in the larger story of the ministry of Jesus Christ. Just as well, as it is with the entirety of the Gospel, there is an ever expanding, ever constantly deeper meaning contained in the story. That is the beauty of the Gospel experience: to deepen our relationship with the God of all time, of every place, of every heart, and every soul.

I’m reminded of the African Proverb, until the lioness tells the story, the hunter is always the hero.

Is America trying to force the camel of history into the needle of absolute American Exceptionalism? If the Realm of God is true peace, prosperity, and freedom for everyone, will America ever realize how difficult it is for us to enter that realm with the deafness and blindness of a country unwilling to listen to ALL voices of our collective history.

It easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a blind country to see the true peace of God.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a deaf country to hear the voice of God.

May we listen to all voices of our collective history so that we may all live in right relationship with God and one another.

I believe that is the point of history.

I believe that is the point of Life.

We are not a free nation

We are not a free nation

The philosophy of Ubuntu says – “I am because we are”.

Paul says, “for just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” 12:12 nrsv

Jesus says in Matthew, “For God makes the sun rise on bad and good alike: God’s rain falls on the just and the unjust.” 5:45 msg

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. says, “God is not merely interested in the freedom of brown men, yellow men, red men, and black men. He is interested in the freedom of the whole human race.”

Each January we celebrate the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with posts, speeches, quotes, memes, and so on. A great many a leader commemorates the birthday of the pioneer of the modern civil rights movement with words and most times with very little deed.  I say modern because…well we’ll get to that.

Let’s talk about freedom and the movement of the spirit during these days following the national celebrations, keeping in mind the quotes from above.

Howard Thurman can help us transition:

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.

After all the quotes, memes, and speeches, after all the posts and pics have worn out only to disappear from the collective conscience, this is when the real work begins to move our nation towards freedom.

We are not a free nation.

We are missing the deeper truth about freedom. We are not free when racism continues to infect the soul of our country. To deny that racism exists and indeed infects the fabric of America is to gaze out into the world with the eyes of privilege. So that when we begin talking about slavery and racism we are talking about the collective soul of this nation.

This is how Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Desmond Tutu, and many others understood freedom. We often make the mistake of thinking that freedom is something that we must either fight for or give up. When we lend our ear to the voices of division, loud screaming voices they are, we lose sight of the hard to see deep truth: those who are fighting for their own freedom are teaching us how to be free from the sin of othering as less than human, which is the root sin of racism. This sin has been within the soul of humankind since we took our first breath of collectively organizing into separate groups. This sin landed on the shores of the new America in the form of slavery.

John told us to repent for the forgiveness of sin. We are still hunting that Jordan river to be made clean and we are still haunted by this sin.

We have yet to repent, ask for forgiveness and live freely. If we can bring ourselves to let go and listen, we are being taught what it is to repent. We are just skipping class because we have been convinced by historical brainwashing that freedom is something we must give up so that someone else can be truly free as a fully human person. In the realm of God, in the beloved community, this is folly.

I have searched the Gospel story and I have not been able to find a place where Jesus Christ says that God’s freedom is for us and not them. I have not been able to find a place where Jesus Christ tells his disciples that God’s freedom is for them, as the in crowd, and not for all of creation. Even the disciples struggled with this notion.

Instead, what I hear in the entirety of our sacred text is that creation, all of creation, is where God’s freedom is given to all and to everything under the sun so that everyone and everything can flourish and thrive.  Let us read that again. Creation, all of creation, is where God’s freedom is given to all and to everything under the sun so that everyone and everything can flourish and thrive.

God’s justice, love, and freedom does indeed flow like a river that nourishes all of God’s creation. Down through human history we have, too many times, gone about the business of building a dam so a lake may be built to keep others out. We fail to realize that living on a private lake of freedom, built with oppression, poisons the water for everyone. Freedom from oppression is freedom for both the oppressor and the oppressed. The oppressor fails to realize that building and sustaining a system of oppression is to allow the evil sin of division sicken the collective body and soul.

When white people in this country realize this, we can begin the work of repentance and healing from the sin. When we, the privileged white folks, see others freedom as important as our own, when we admit to our own sin of othering as less than human, we are stepping into the redemptive work of healing. It is in this work that Jesus joins us as modern disciples with Christ. Jesus is our cohort in the work of bringing God’s justice to all.

We are not a free nation.

We continue to be sickened by the sin of racism. We just need to decide if we are going to embark on the difficult task of going up stream to breakdown, deconstruct, dismantle, destroy, blow up the human made dam of oppression so that the river of God’s freedom flows freely, overflows the banks and floods all the earth, as it has always done, as it was always meant to be. Listening to the voices of those we continue to oppress may help us to see that the river of freedom can never be contained. We may be able to slow its flow for a bit, for our own short lived personal gain, but the Levee breaks.

When I say we and white folk I’m talking about and including myself in this conversation. I realized my own ignorance and I have come to see clearly my ancestors who walked and lived in the world of privilege and racism. Although my work is not done, I have seen and felt the calling that the Gospel has put on my heart to lay my privilege on the line, grab the hand of Christ and work to heal what is broken, both within myself and the world. To put it succinctly: I am white folk. Now that I recognize the ignorance with which I was raised and taught, now that I can see the sin, I must join in the ranks of creating a better way for all. The blessing is that we don’t do this work alone. There is a better Way.

In our Christian tradition, Jesus is the Way and the example of the One who puts it all on the line to break the levee open so that God’s freedom may nourish all of creation. Christ Jesus knew that freedom is given freely to all of creation. Christ Jesus also knew that humanity continues to fight with itself and struggle with the sinful concept of who can be free and who has the right to hoard the freedom of others with politics, policy, and violence.

We are not a free nation.

We continue to be yoked to the sin of racism. True freedom within our souls can only come when we realize that freedom is God given. When we work to take away someone else’s ability to realize their own humanity we are truly taking away our own freedom by continuing the sin of oppressing others so that our own power remains.

May we not listen to those who say give me more power.

May we listen to the One who died because humanity could not, would not listen to the voice of Divine Incarnated Love.

May we listen to the yearnings of our true heart.

May we all gaze upon that cross and see our own sins.

May we all look beyond our sin to the Tomb that reminds us that God’s freedom is eternal.  

May we realize the truth of humanity: Our true freedom is tied up and within the freedom of everyone. No one is free until we are all free.

It is at the foot of the Cross that we realize; power kills and God’s freedom rains down from the heavens to freely fall on each of us, to nourish each soul with love and grace.

I am free when you are free!!

Locating Jesus

Locating Jesus

In the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke we hear about Jesus and his parents making their way to and from the festival of the Passover. Along the way they discover that Jesus is not with them, nowhere to be found among their family and friends that are traveling with them. They expected Jesus to be among and with them, but he has stayed in Jerusalem. Jesus was not where his parents expected him to be. 

It is this in between space, between losing and finding Jesus, that we can ask ourselves, where do we expect Jesus to be? Where do we look for Jesus? These questions lead us to a deeper discussion of who is Jesus for us and does the Jesus of history have anything to teach us today?

Jim Wallis, in his book, (Un)Common Good, How the Gospel Brings Hope to a World Divided, shares a wonderful piece of wisdom that continues to guide my understanding of Jesus and God’s mission within humankind. 

“Who we think Jesus is will determine the kind of Christianity we live….If Jesus came to create a new community and not just save people, then that community’s collective life in the world will be of crucial importance. And, if we as individuals are so drawn to Jesus that we want to learn the ways he would have us live, he becomes the living teacher who walks among us”  

Have we learned all there is to know about Jesus Christ? 

If we look for Jesus within our own location, within our own church, within our own community, then we miss the fact that Jesus is among the places and people we don’t expect him to be. Jesus is leading us all to a deeper relationship with God, inviting us to know Him more so that we can know God. Jesus teaches us all, this is a lifelong journey to know our own selves more and discover the Divine Presence within all of creation, to honor the Divine in others as we honor it within ourselves. 

If we know all there is to know about Jesus Christ, then He loses His ability to challenge us as individuals as well as challenge the empire of greed and power. Jesus loses his power of transformation when we know exactly where Jesus Christ is and who Jesus Christ is. 

If we have nothing left to learn from God, life and Jesus then all this knowing may turn to ownership. You see WE know who Jesus Christ is and He resides with us, right here. WE have all the answers to all the questions about Jesus Christ, who He is and where He is. When we believe that we have all the answers we close our hearts down to that deeper relationship with God that Jesus invites into. 

If we believe that Jesus is with us in our location, within our tribe, within our house, within our church and, most destructive of all, within our OWN not with them, then Jesus becomes an idol instead of a conduit for transformation of all that is.

Luke, maybe unbeknownst to him, invites deeper into the Gospel by sharing this story of Mary and Joseph searching for Jesus where they expected Him to be.

If we turn to the Gospel story, we may be able to get a glimpse of where Jesus Christ is by realizing where he is not. This may help to find Jesus by realizing where he is not.

Jesus Christ is not in the exclusion of others. Jesus Christ is nowhere near the simplistic us vs. them or we vs. other. Jesus Christ has no place in nation building or continental location. Jesus is not American nor patriotic.

If we truly want to find Jesus it may be in the “other” more so than the “we”. 

Maybe wherever there is need, there we may find Jesus. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer further helps us understand: He comes in the form of the beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes, asking for help. He confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor.

The difficult task of human kind, the rubber meeting the spiritual road is knowing that WE are all in need of God’s love and presence. In the opening of our hearts to realize our own need to be loved without condition, it is there that we may find Jesus in every heart. 

It is in the journey towards transformation that we find Jesus exactly where we need Him to be. 

Right here along side us on every road, through every valley, on top of every mountain, in the shadows of despair, in the joy of a smile, in the deep questions of our faith, in the fight for justice, in the beloved community building, in the searching and in the finding.

In the end we are all searching for Immanuel, God with us. 

Jesus tells us, I AM here, exactly where it is that you search for me.

Expectation or Exploration

Expectation or Exploration

Who do we read about when we read the Gospel? Do we view Jesus with an open hand of invitation or a palm facing out, pushing us away when we struggle, or backslide or ask questions? Do we seek to read about the Jesus of the Gospel so that then we can be affirmed in our beliefs and push people away who we view as other, different, and not enough? 

Jesus proclaims in Matthew, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Our most prized possession, our Christian treasure, could be the Jesus of yes, I am all these things, and I Am also more than human understanding. I Am all these things and more, makes the questions we ask, to the point of division instead of exploration, fools’ folly. The point is not that one practice is “the way”. The point is to accept God’s invitation to be in conversation and relationship, whichever faith has been laid upon our hearts to practice. The journey is the point much more than making sure that we are on the right vessel with the right people. 

We are all in constant conversation with God in every experience of our lives along with the life to come. If we listen deeply to the stirrings of the soul, Jesus will be our Christian conversation partner who can help us experience God, teach us how to love our neighbor, and live a life guided by the God of Jesus instead of the circumstances and powers of the world. 

And, when we think of the circumstances of the world today, we may approach our conversation partner and ask, what is Jesus Christ telling me about this situation today? How is God teaching me about myself? How is God inviting me into deeper discussion and wrestling? How am I connected to these people? How are these people connected to me? The most important question we can ask, where is Jesus located in this situation?  

If we can come to understand Jesus Christ as invitation to know and experience God instead of the CEO of our own private company, we can then view the world through the empathetic eyes of God, as Jesus did. 

When we realize in our hearts that Jesus was guided by the divine indwelling of the Spirit and we can allow ourselves to be guided by that same Spirit, then our hearts open a bit wider, and we allow God to transform us from within. 

When we approach the Gospel story from a point of view of exploration about God, us and our interconnected relationship and when we can put our expectations aside we can discover the Jesus of transformation, renewal and healing.

We may even discover our more fully human self.

Both & Also

““There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”― Desmond Tutu

Let us explore how we may put these two concepts together in a both & also manner instead of either or.

We all have a role to play in both rescuing and advocating. Rescuing, the pulling people out of the river, those who may be drowning from the human created systems of oppression along with and, going up stream to dismantle and tear down the systems that throw life away, down the river for someone else to care about.

This may be easier to see and understand if we can view the rescuing part as we think about our family, friends, and community. I’ll gladly put myself in harm’s way, ridicule, or public embarrassment to save my children, my family, or fellow neighbor.

We all may feel a sense of wading in the water to rescue our loved ones. Even to the point of drowning ourselves. We will stand up to the “institution” so that we or our loved one’s receive equal opportunity in life to thrive as a human being. This may be thought of as rescuing and maybe even advocating to a certain point. We will gladly step from the rescuing, pulling, to advocating, upstream work, for those we are closest to and love. This may not come naturally to all of us. However, most of us have empathy for those we know and love. Thinking about rescuing or advocating on behalf of those closest to us may not feel like a stretch.

We can all feel what it would or has been like advocating on behalf of our children if a school is not granting a good education. We can all feel what it may be like to advocate for a loved one who isn’t receiving the best health care. Think Shirley McClain in Terms of Endearment. Turning from rescuing our neighbors, who we may not know, to advocating on their behalf is the challenge.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus calls us to see every fellow human being as our neighbor and advocate on their behalf, giving up some of our own resources, power, privilege, time, and treasure so that all have true equal opportunity to become fully human. The Good Samaritan both rescues the beaten as well as escorts him to a place of safety, giving up some of his time and treasure to ensure the beaten gets good care: Rescue and advocacy are part of the parable along with our calling as Christ’s hands and feet, His church.

This is move from rescuing into advocacy to the work of going up stream and putting our very way of life on the line to challenge the oppressive systems, which stem from the ego centered empire of greed and power, becomes a stumbling block, an impediment to seeing and honoring the divine in all of creation. Especially those who we have been told are less than by society, culture, tradition, family, and history.

We can see putting it all and more on the line for our families. The difficult part comes when we, as called forth by God through Jesus, are admonished to put all that on the line for someone we have never met.

From The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“On the parable of the Good Samaritan: "I imagine that the first question the priest and Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But by the very nature of his concern, the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

If we can, by the Grace of God, hold this quote and know that collectively we are all standing by the banks of the river. Each playing a part in the rescuing of our neighbors along with going up the river to stem the flow of oppression that is throwing bodies away in the name of greed.

It is not enough to stand at the riverbank feeling sorry for those who are hurting and struggling against oppression and violence.

It is not enough to stand at the riverbank helping with the rescue effort without also doing the difficult work of dismantling the entire system.

It is not enough to say well at least I’m not like them so I don’t need to interrupt my way of life. I’m a good person and I didn’t create the mess in the first place.

In the end we are all responsible for the well-being of each other as we are all connected by the sacred strand of Eternal Creation.

Truth

This is a print from https://radicistudios.com

From Matthew 3: In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.

In his book, Speaking Christian, Marcus Borg may help us understand the deeper meaning of repentance. “In what is believed to be the first words of Jesus in any Gospel, the Gospel of Mark, Jesus proclaims, ‘The Kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’ To repent means to turn, return to God and to go beyond the mind that we have and see things in a new way’. He goes further: ‘repentance - turning and returning to God, going beyond the mind that we have - is the path that leads to transformation.’

We are in a transformational time in our country once again. Transformation may feel like a great storm, it may feel like God has left us in the eye of the storm to battle for ourselves. It may feel like God has left us now to contend with our own sins, unable to return to God, unable to see and honor the Divine in others stuck in the cycle of violence. We have been here before but our faith tells us, God has been with us all along during the storms as well as the joy of the sunshine that lurks behind every cloud. 

Through Jesus Christ God is calling us to repent and return our gaze upon God so that we may be transformed into a people that respects and loves one another instead of tearing each other down for our own gain and continued grip on power. 

We cannot ask anyone else to turn unless we ourselves are willing to transform our own hearts and minds. We must look deep into the mirror of our souls and realize that it isn’t the other one. It is us and only us who can transform the world by transforming our hearts first. We are called to individual as well as collective repentance. 

This turn begins with the truth of our sins. But, can we? Can we imagine a transformed America where the river of true freedom and justice rolls down to nourish all of us? Is that our ideal any longer? Could we ever see the day when America repents? Can we even see the continuing sin of racism within our country? It is all too easy to respond to someone else’s hate with hate in our own heart. I fear it is all too easy to remain blind to the speck in our own eye.

If we listen to the words of John and Jesus, we may hear the yearning of God calling us towards repentance, pulling us towards healing, prodding us to open our hearts so as to be transformed, so that our country may live into the higher ideal of what America could be, what we can become. 

All large-scale transformations begin one transformed heart at a time. Jesus knew this and set out to bring people into the essence, king/kindom, place of God, the heart of the Divine, the beloved community, person by person, town by town, group by group, and soul by soul. 

May we all hear the call to repent and be healed. May we all keep our eye on what we can become and maybe we can then see what God is calling us all towards.

Prayer: God of mercy and justice help us cling to your Presence so that we may be healed. Help us to return to you thankful in our joy, repentant in our honesty, and open to transformation. May your Presence in our lives help us to become your Presence in others lives.

Contrast

It can feel like our lives are being lived in black and white, absolute, us versus them. It can feel like we are living in the most difficult times in our nation’s history, polarized to the point of breaking once again.

Maybe now more than ever, we are being inundated with a notion that life is a simple division between black and white. That to solve the problems of our time all we need to do is hate the other person, blame them, promote, or vote for the “right person for the job” and move on. All one must do is align themselves with the “right” person, place, thing, or group. In doing so we can be part of the winning team.  “Our” team will not only win, but they will also put things right. Our faith, my faith has been misplaced at times. My faith has been put in human institutions instead of the Divine realm of God.  

When we think of being on the right side or the wrong side, we then move to quickly into the thinking that God is on our side, the righteous side of history. This is all to the detriment of our collective soul. 

In living this way, we have lost our connection with the driving force of the universe, God, who is bringing all things together instead of dividing us apart. We lose touch with the God who is about peace making in every time and in every place. The God who heals all wounds, transforms, and resurrects all that humanity has broken. 

It is in the gray area of life that real transformation happens, where creativity can blossom and where deep healing takes place. Gray represents the collection of the two opposites of black and white. It is only in the collective that we can solve the problems of this nation and world. 

The gray area may make us feel vulnerable as we step into the conversation carrying our personal responsibility. Absolute right and wrong feels good. It gives us answers and can feel comfortable. Until there is only darkness in our hearts, even as we believe we are right.

When we move from the deep contrast of either/or and step into the gray area collectively is when we can then move to see the entire color spectrum and the wonderful tapestry of creation in all its splendor. Moving from the extreme contrast of absolute to the fullness of God can then feel like an awakening from a deep slumber to a bright morning sunrise. 

God is calling us and beckoning us to awaken. This is a new day and the new dawn. Awaken and witness all that God is doing, creating, healing, loving, making a Way towards peace where there seems to be no way, and transforming hearts to transform the world. 

I don't have to

I don’t have to, but I have to

I was thinking about this in terms of helping someone out. He said, you don’t have to. I said, I don’t have to, but I have to. No, I didn’t owe him anything, but I have a moral obligation to help when I can.

This got me thinking about large corporations and their responsibility. In an economic model or a capitalistic way of thinking corporations don’t have a responsibility to their employees, their well being or the well being of their family. In a capitalistic way of seeing the world the corporation has no obligation beyond making sure the paycheck is on time and calculated in a fair and just manner. The corporation has no obligation to the better good of all. The company has no obligation to the beloved community. The only obligation is to the bottom line of profit over loss. This is an economic centered way of life, and it literally kills people by poising the spirit, life, and environment in the name of profit over loss.

This posed a question for me. What is our moral imperative? Where do we go for our obligation guideposts if you will? Where do we go to find our moral center? From that moral center who are we obligated to? Is economics a moral center?

God pulls us back to act as curators of the beloved community in our time and place in history. Our Christian guide to the ways of God is found in Jesus Christ and Jesus not only preaches and teaches about that moral center, but He also lives from that place all the way to the cross. From a moral center as found in Jesus Christ we may understand I don’t have to, but I have to. Economics tells me I don’t have to. The God of Love implores me through empathy and compassion, I have to.

We must help when and where we are able for our own wellbeing. For in the wellbeing of others we find our own wellness.

If we operate from an economic model of morals, then we don’t have to do anything but exploit anything and everything for our own gain. Such as paying employees a less than living wage and using the profits of a worldwide, multi trillion-dollar corporation to finance billion-dollar trips to outer space. In an economic, capitalistic centered model of living this makes total sense. While there are people literally starving in the streets we finance a trip to space.

In a Christ centered understanding of a moral imperative, this is wrong. We, the American corporation, are obligated to the Beloved community, the kingdom, love, care, compassion, health, and wellbeing of each other. This is our moral center from which we all must strive to operate from.

Ubuntu is a valuable way of understanding this moral imperative we have to one another. Ubuntu is not an economic model. Ubuntu is a spiritual model that we see in Jesus and how he walked and talked while on this earth. ‘I Am Because We Are’. ‘Love as you have been love’.

If we are to be a people of the Way in our time and place in the here and now, we are obligated to our neighbors as our selves. We are morally obligated to the creation of equal opportunities for each person to thrive. Creating a model of living from that moral center, love your neighbors as yourselves as God so loved you, will help to create a more perfect union among the people who call this rock of matter and gas, home.

Adapted from a prayer by Robert Rains that first appeared in The Wittenberg Door (04 December 1971)

O God, make me discontented with things the way they are in the world and in my own life.

Make me notice the stains when people get spilled on.

Make me care about the slum child downtown,

the misfit at work,

the forgotten people in our hospitals and nursing homes,

the men, women and youth behind bars.

Jar my complacence, expose my excuses,

get me involved in the life of my city and world.

Give me integrity once more,

O God, as we seek to be changed and transformed,

with a new understanding and awareness of our common humanity

The problems of this world will only be solved when we truly see our neighbor as we see ourselves.

When we begin to listen to the truth in someone else’s story, we begin the journey towards loving as we have been loved.

Churchn'

Leslie Congregational UCC

116 W. Bellevue

When we think of church what comes to mind? Community? Potluck? God? Jesus? Coffee? Conflict? Worry? Anxiety? Relationship? Is the church only as good as it’s growing numbers for a Sunday morning worship? Is the church only as good as it’s online viewership?

What is church meant to be and what does it mean to us as members is a wonderful question that may lead to "how” do we do church. What is church can lead to the better question of how do we do church.

If you were to read any article, pre-COVID, you’d find a general notion that church growth will not happen on Sunday mornings. With very few exceptions church’s were not going to grow by concentrating on Sunday morning pew numbers. Now that we are, hopefully, God willing and the creek don’t rise, post COVID, or at least through the worst of it, that notion remains and has been amplified. More and more articles are pointing out the growing numbers of non church folk and those who fell away from their local church and a large number are not returning. For a pastor this is a difficult reality. I think most pastors were hoping, even if we said different, for a return to at least a form of normal that would bring ‘em all back in droves. Including the young adults that were part of our community.

For a pastor and church who are worried about numbers it can be anxiety inducing. For this pastor, I simply miss the non-returning folks. For whatever reason they are not returning and I miss their presence and energy.

Where does all this leave us? Sad? Worried?

What if? What if we are realizing that the church is far outside the four walls of Sunday morning, and always has been.

What if we are learning that it was never about us in the first place, it was always about God? If the God of creation and love is the expansive God of all that is, was and will become, how can we expect to contain God in the building. Now don’t get me wrong. God, when church is done good, is found within the confines of a church building.

Experiencing the Divine Love of God has been the point all along.

When church is done well people find that on Sunday mornings. When church is done well people experience the love and grace of God within us and feel that Love from us and from our churches. The question becomes how do we create sanctuary outside of the sanctuary?

I believe that people are yearning for a caring place of safety and comfort. A break from the bustle of life and conflict in our public square. People are seeking, more than anything else, a place to come and be vulnerable and know that they will be cared for. A place to lay bare their worries and find a listening ear. If that is the case then we carry church in our hearts. Don’t we? We become the sanctuary. Don’t we? We are the church. Aren’t we?

Church may be the simplest thing we can do to heal a broken world. Take the love of God with us wherever we go. Not so that people will come on Sunday mornings but so that Sunday mornings will be taken to the people.

Ooohhhh….we might be getting closer to the king/kindom of God. The place and essence of God may be closer than we think.

When we live into that Divine Love and witness to that Divine Love in others we can all do church and do it good.

Church by tiny little church contained in each of us, a little bit of our broken world may be healed.

May the hearts and doors of our church remain wide open so that people may know the Divine Presence that cannot be contained by time or place.

Lean your ear

A poem by Malcom Guite: The Triune Poet

In the Beginning, not in time or space,

But in the quick before both space and time,

In Life, in Love, in co-inherent Grace,

In three in one and one in three, in rhyme,

In music, in the whole creation story,

In His own image, His imagination,

The Triune Poet makes us for His glory,

And makes us each the other’s inspiration.

He calls us out of darkness, chaos, chance,

To improvise a music of our own,

To sing the chord that calls us to the dance,

Three notes resounding from a single tone,

To sing the End in whom we all begin;

Our God beyond, beside us and within.

I really like the poetry of Malcom Guite and I probably enjoy this one in particular because it helps me understand the relational value of the Trinity and our relationship within it: Three notes resounding from a single tone. It reminds me of the vibrations of my voice when I hum, sing or chant.

As I thought and meditated today it reminded me of the vibrations of life. When we really think about it. even the slightest sound is a vibration that disturbs the air as it resonates in our ear drum to become a sound.

I wonder if that it how it is sometimes with God. If we lean our ear towards the vibrating presence of God within all of creation we may feel the closeness of God all around. Instead of something that is far off in the distance that we cannot feel, experience or hear, we can instead feel the vibrations of creation and draw closer to the Divine.

Calling us to lean our ear

Beckoning us to hear

Asking us to feel

Vibrations of creation

Symphony of the sunrise

Crashing waves

Crescendo of the rising moon

Humming of Spring time

Fluttering of the heart of God

As the wind moves across the earth

Breathing and exhaling

Vibrating with the sound of the Eternal Spirit

Listen

Lean your ear towards the vibrations

Hum with the music of life

Do good, Now!!

The Goodness of God, now.

From the 9th chapter in Luke, the Message version, “can’t put God’s kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day.”

Kairos (Ancient Greek: καιρός) is an Ancient Greek word meaning the right, critical, or opportune moment. The ancient Greeks had two words for time: chronos (χρόνος) and kairos. The former refers to chronological or sequential time, while the latter signifies a proper or opportune time for action.

Richard Rohr tells us, “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better”.

Our newsfeeds are filled with all the bad that is going on. Our public and political arena are being infested with anger on the verge of hateful violence. It seems we are no longer debating or discussing. Instead, we are hating each other, and that hateful rhetoric is infecting our collective psyche.

Jesus told them then and tells us now, do the good of God now. Not later!! right now! The need to do good and put grace, compassion and love into the world is not a 5-year plan with a committee of 10 gathered to decide what is the best approach. Jesus helps us realize, now! Right now! Today! Wipe away all excuses and get on the justice road with Jesus.

Kairos time is time beyond hours in a day. Kairos time is a collective call of the clarion to the action of doing good with every moment of our lives. Instead of listening to the noise of the day we may listen to the yearning of our hearts to be loved and know that we are Divinely loved beyond measure, beyond our human ability to earn it. We are simply loved by God: unearned, unconditional. When we feel that in our hearts and know that nothing can take that away, as Paul says, not even death, then we live within the goodness of God’s love in all of creation. We can then witness that to the rest of the world because we know the goodness of God in our hearts.

Richard Rohr is helping me understand the opposite of bad is to put good into the world. The opposite of bad is not to lament and allow the seeds of anger to grow in my own heart. The opposite of bad is to realize the innate goodness of God, the Divine that I carry within.

This is the practice of better in our daily lives and Richard helps us acknowledge to criticize the bad is not to let the bad infest our hearts with anger. But to criticize the bad is to simply be about the ministry of doing good in our time and place in history.

The Kairos moment is upon us. There is no time to put off the daily task of putting good into the world. By putting good into the world, we are allowing the goodness of God to sink deeper into our spirits, souls, and hearts, both communally and personally.

There is no better time to do something good than right now!

There is no better time to criticize the presence of bad by doing good!

Putting forth

In Matthew 6:21 Jesus Christ invites us to ponder what are we putting forth into the world.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

You may have seen posts on social media that ask…If you could sit with someone who has passed, who would you choose. As many people would I’d first choose family members who were important in my life. I miss my grandpas and grandmas, uncle, aunts and so on. I would love to sit with my dad again and talk.

When my uncle passed years ago I wrote a poem that helped me express the inner grief I felt when he died. It was in the writing of that poem that I came see my uncle as my hippy worry stone. I would love to sit and talk with him about the affairs of our current world, especially the vitriol we hear and the rise of white rage once again that is infecting our society. I am sure that he and I would lament together as we did when he was alive.

One thing that has changed in the last few years since his death is my deepening faith, how much I see Jesus Christ as an important part of my life, how much I witness and experience a profound spiritual wisdom within and from Jesus Christ. I would tell him how Jesus Christ is helping me understand where my heart is there will be not only what I treasure, there will also be what I put forth into the world. I would love to wrestle with this with him. My uncle was more buddhist than Christian and I think he’d find value in our conversation, even if we come at wisdom from differing points of view.

I think of this wisdom that Jesus shares in terms of a treasure hunt. As in what do we look for in the world? What do we seek out? What do we see as important in our lives?

I wonder if an even deeper understanding may be that where our heart is, or the spiritual place that we live from is what people experience from us. What are we putting forth? What are people experiencing in us? Where is our heart?

If our heart is full of pain from past wounds and our heart is not healed we end up putting our pain into the world through anger and disfunction. If our heart is filled up and overflowing, like Jesus, with the love of God is that what we are putting forth? I wonder if that is the question that Jesus Christ is helping us ponder in Matthew.

To gaze into the world and see the beauty of creation, to gaze into the world and step into the Divine blessing of awe in our hearts is to gaze into the world and seek to experience the Divine Presence. When we discover the treasure of unearned, unbreakable Love within all of creation, experience this within our hearts, this becomes what we put forth into a world in desperate need of that Love.

For where your treasure is , there your heart will be also.

Where our hearts live, there will be also what we are putting forth.

Seek Divine Treasure

Discover Divine Love

Putting forth from a joyful heart

The Gospel is life anew

From Matthew 16 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life[f] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

This passage can seem harsh and off putting to many of us. We have to die in order to follow Jesus? We have to give up our very lives, our families, our homes, friends, church? Even our children?

If we read deeper into this passage we will find the invitation to life. For the Divine Christ incarnated in Jesus can be understood as the universal invitation of God to be in healthy/right relationship with God and one another: righteousness or right relationship.

We can see and hear that life with Jesus Christ as our guide is much healthier living for us and our communities. We can hear underneath the proclamation of Jesus that life is not just better if we follow the Divine Christ found in Jesus. We can hear that a life that is lead by our ego driven, self centered way of being in the world is actually not living at all and may even be death instead of life.

We can hear the invitation to give up our worry, anxiety and fear in order to truly take on the dialy work of living as Jesus lived. What Jesus is getting at is something very profound and the disciples were missing the point of Jesus and his life. I’m reminded of that Pixar movie Cars and the line, “if you go hard enough left you’ll find yourself turning right.” If we really want to find our true selves and live a healthy life we must give up our way of life and take on the life of Jesus. It will feel like giving everything we know. It may feel as if we are giving up our self to find our true self: our fully human selves.

What Jesus Christ is helping them realize then and helping us in our realization now: to find our true selves is a journey of giving up and letting go to let Christ live deeper within our hearts. Then and in that place we will find life anew. For most of us this is the daily cross that we carry.